Contrary to perceptions that the Brownie volunteers of Bukit Brown spend all their time at the cemetery, the reality is we are often exploring or chasing – either  individually and sometimes ( when we can co-ordinate our busy schedules)  as a community  –  other heritage and nature trails (before they are decimated by development)

A sunny Sunday morning saw an opportunity to explore a charming, idyllic stream, embraced in nature’s natural air conditioning right smack in the forested area known as Lentor (Tagore) Forest of Teachers Estate.  Our guide was Leong Kwok Peng of Nature Society of Singapore (NSS).

Here are some photos of that morning, where some “frolicked” and others explored or at times did both. We all came out came out refreshed and also sad that we are  in imminent danger of this intimate stream being “canalised” in concrete or buried over in development plans.

Well, hello there are you pleased to see me? Photo captured by Lawrence Chong from a most unusual angle.

A more natural angle captured by Simone Lee

And hello there again from 2 brownies, no they did not fall down from what looks deceptively like a long distance. It’s a stream so getting wet is par for the course (photo Simone Lee)

“I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden toilet pumps” – with apologies to Wordsworth , Simone thought of toilet pumps when she saw them. Photo by Ang Hock Chuan

(photo Simone Lee)

More fungi (photo Simone Lee)

“Fern Gully” – not the scientific name, just a hark back to some old movie title (Photo Simone Lee)

(photo Catherine Lim)

Our Nature Society guide Kwok Peng trying not to get his feet wet (photo Simone Lee)

(photo Simone Lee)

Maybe she had a sip of the water “Youthful Exuberance” (photo Ang Hock Chuan)

(photo Ang Hock Chuan)

Brownies streaming….. (photo Lawrence Chong)

Not that difficult to get up and down with a gallant hand to this neck of the woods, just some light bush bashing through forested trek and voila you are there. (photo Simone Lee)

Join the Nature Society of Singapore (NSS)  FB group here and you can find more  photos on the stream and its environs.

The NSS wrote a position paper proposing a  phased development of the area leaving   the streams untouched. Their rationale was quite simple, since not all the  land was needed urgently :

“We leave a valuable stretch of forest as a land-bank with its ecological and biodiversity values for future generations to decide as to whether they want to preserve it or to exploit it for other uses. Tastes and needs can vary and differ from generation to generation. What is of no value today may be in great demand for a future generation. People, whether in the immediate or far future, may appreciate natural greenery and its wildlife more as these become rare or scarce —- apart from what is already there in our limited protected nature areas.”

To that we say, hear, hear and Amen. Please help to spread the word to your MPs!

You can read more about the position paper which can be downloaded here